Summarize the decline and fall of the soviet union

There were two main platforms of Gorbachev's reform

People were tired of being told what to do by Russians, they wanted to govern themselves, or, at least, have more autonomy within the Soviet framework - but the centre would not budge. Because of Glasnost' they could criticise and soon they began to organise. Eventually the people in the Baltic Republics started protesting demanding independence, and soon, with the collapse of the union, they got it. The event that pushed the Soviet Union into the history books was the failed coup of August 1991, when communist hard-liners tried to remove Gorbachev from office, and put in place a more stalinist system - within two months of this coup the Soviet Union was no more.